good morning everybody! i'm angela miles. thank you for joining us for this morning's edition of first business. just ahead, stocks traders want to buy now. we'll take a look at a scam that aims to steal your frequent flier miles. how to prevent scammers from getting into your account. plus, many members of the military find themselves in debt. we'll hear from a young woman who helps shell out advice to our heros. and, you might know him as a blues brother, but find out how dan akroyd is upping his net worth with a little help from the liquor business.

before we get to all that, let's check in with matt shapiro, president of mws capital. good morning matt. what is your trading strategy in the third quarter? > > look at it, we've had a year where we're going to be looking, honestly, for me, to consolidate gains as this market, i think, is going to do better than people think going into the election. what happened these past two or three summers? we've had a meltdown, and what happened to the market angie? > > the market came back. > > it did, didn't it? so, we're at sort of a pushing point. some investors say, "you know what? we're at all-time highs here. i'm taking my money and going home." other investors like me are staying the course and focusing on the large-cap growth strategies. that's really helped my accounts to finish the year. > > my hope is that people watching the show will not miss out on a time of opportunity. there are no guarantees, but what are some of the stocks you're putting some money into for your portfolio?

> > especially that big-cap growth, those all-american names. remember, we're in an economy where we don't have rapidly rising revenues across the board. we have sort of slow, steady growth. we have those phenomenon kind of stocks like apple. so, i like technology. that's sweeping up a lot of stocks. for instance, qualcomm, one of the biggest leaders, provides all the chip sets for these smart phones. but i also like a stock like starbucks and ralph lauren. different spectrums, but very profitable companies. so the theme for me is concentration. stick with the winners, stick with large-cap u.s. growth. > > go with america is your theme. > > absolutely, because i think the world is really going to be watching these election results, and what typically happens is americans get behind each other together and move forward, and i think we're going to get to a really strong finish for the year. > > that's a very positive thought. i think i'll leave you right there. that's matt

shapiro, president of mws capital. thank you matt. some women tend to be more charitable than men. an indiana university report on philanthropy shows baby boomer generation women and older donate more money more frequently to charity than men. analysis found that men tend to think about donating to non- profits as a "financial transaction," while women enjoy the benefits of a relationship with a non-profit organization. the number of americans living paycheck-to-paycheck is starting to show signs of improvement. according to a survey by careerbuilder, 40% of workers report always or usually living paycheck-to-paycheck, versus 42% in 2011. the percentage peaked at 46% during the financial crisis. a group known as ampleharvest.org is making it easy for backyard gardeners to find food pantries eager to receive their excess bounty. it began in the garden state of new jersey and inspired a nationwide movement fighting hunger in america. in our cover story, how that fight is gaining strength in chicago.

shortly after joining kam isaiah israel synagogue in chicago, robert nevel, an architect, saw the temple, its grounds, and thought of food. "a building sitting in a sea of lawn, like a roast surrounded by a platter of garnish." he convinced elders to plow under that 'platter of garnish' expanse of lawn and use the land to grow produce. now, dozens of volunteers tend more than 5,000 square feet of vegetable garden. in two years, each square foot of land has produced a pound of vegetables. "we get these gardens going in march and deliver all the way to halloween." three days a week, he harvests, and provides fresh vegetables for five hot-meal programs such as the living room cafe on 64th street, feeding hundreds of people during the week. "it's a greater need for it. because of the economy, we're seeing people who normally

wouldn't ask for help." all of the hot-meal programs are within a mile of the garden. "it's a big difference. fresh produce is so much better for you than what comes out of a can." a second garden has been added, and the concept of 'food-not- lawns' has taken root at two neighboring churches. "we are prepared to help any congregation do this and keep this movement going to transform unproductive landscape into food production." gardeners with produce to donate may find local pantries in their area by checking the website ampleharvest.org. pantries themselves - and there are more than 5200 of them in all 50 states - are encouraged to register with the website. a new scam aimed at stealing your frequent flier air miles is happening around the country. jen waters of marketwatch.com is here with more on the new

cyber crooks. jen, how are they getting into people's air mileage? > > they're getting there from e-mails, they're getting there from finding your boarding ticket at the airport, and they're finding your number off of that. they've got all kinds of ways. the most popular way though is through phishing e- mails, and they basically are coming to you and saying, "listen, we're from american airlines or we're united airlines," they'll put the logo up there. it makes you think that, but then when you look down and you go further and you see it's "u.s. airlines," well, there is no "u.s. airlines." so they're really looking at very sophisticated and tricky ways of getting to you. > > what can people do to protect themselves? > > first and foremost, really pay attention to what's coming to you in those e-mails. then also, like your bank account and like your credit card, change those passwords and be aware of what's coming. watch the accounts to see if they've been touched at all. also, you might want to be aware of how they address you. when i get something from american airlines, it says "hello jennifer." if it says something like "dear customer" or one i saw that just said "dear," you should be worried that that is

not necessarily coming from your airline. > > will the airline refund the miles? > > they might. i'm sure they will if you harass them enough. but, it's going to take some hoops to go through before you get it. they're going to want to make sure that you did not use those miles, and you will probably have to prove it some way or another. > > thank you very much. that's jen waters of marketwatch.com. it may be getting a little more expensive to snag a sweet seat while flying. over the next several years, coach passengers may start to notice some changes aboard aircraft. many airlines will soon start scaling back on legroom and using seats with less padding. for better seating options, marketwatch.com recommends booking early and comparing different airlines' amenities for the best deal. questions are being raised about the people who check into food safey. reports say cases of listeria and other food related disease happen every year, but go unaddressed by lawmakers, regulators and the food industry. critics say there is a conflict of interest because the food auditors are brought in

and paid by the food producers. reports also say some food inspection companies set up their own standards and have lax hiring requirements. some small farmer advocy groups dispute report. on a lighter note: blues brother dan aykroyd is now selling vodka. it's the latest entrepreneurial move for the oscar-winning comic actor who once sold fictional bass-o-matic fish blenders in the first years of "saturday night live," but has since gone on to a string of endeavors that have led him to an estimated net worth of between 125 and 135 million dollars. dan aykroyd is one of four partners producing crystal head vodka. and boy, does he have the lingo. "our notes are sweet vanilla, dry, crisp, with a kick of heat off the finish." since the company launched four years ago, it's sold more than three million bottles of vodka as pure as the ice age water from canada that goes into each little skull. "we are a wellness product. well, well well, that vodka

tastes good." there's more. "we're on a mission from god." the blues brother turned booze brother has several recent movie projects - one on flamboyant pianist liberace... "...and if you are a musician..." "you remember lee, of course. people loved liberace, everybody loved him" yet aykroyd still sings the blues. "as long as i can move, i'm not gonna do it from a chair. if i can't move anymore, i won't do it." aykroyd is hardly the first celebrity to use his fame in this way. wayne gretzky and mike ditka use theirs to sell wine and marketers say it works. "fans of a particular celebrity who are made aware of an endorsement are 3 times more likely to purchase that product and 2 times more likely to reccommend it to someone." but aykroyd has proven particularly shrewd at choosing products to back. he bases a lot of his decisions on a simple question: "what would i like as a consumer? i would like a place where i can go and have

louisiana cuisine, hear a blues hand, look at folk art on the walls, and walk out with a great experience. that is house of blues." house of blues, the concert hall empire aykroyd co-founded in 1992 and sold 15 years later for $350 million dollars. aykroyd is 60 now and shows no signs of slowing down. writing is in his blood as much as music. "the life of a writer. that's the best. write for four hours, go have a coffee, go back, write two, go pick up the kid kid from school, come write three more, have supper, go write 'til midnight. at the end of the day, you've got five to eight pages, you're doing great." some fans who came to aykroyd's autograph session dressed as "ghostbusters" can't help but wonder if there's another sequel to the hit movie he co- wrote anytime soon? "it has to be perfect, and in order to get it perfect, we've really got to bake that cake right. it has to rise, and fluff, and pop in all the right places. it's not on the page yet, not on the page yet."

aykroyd says a key to product endorsement is to become an active participant in the process, not simply rely on being the famous face brought in after all of the meetings have taken place. on the labor front, certain cities tend to be better than others when it comes to hiring young americans.a survey by payscale reveals gen-y and millennials aged 20-30 are more likely to find jobs in metroplitan areas. the number one city, the survey says, is seattle. wages have increased 4.4%, the median pay is 44 grand, and the area is famous for jobs in tech and engineering. houston also makes the grade, with pay also around $44,000. boston's young people earn around $46,000, but san francisco tops them all with a median pay of $51,000 per year. still to come, why men and women in uniform tend to have more problems with debt. we'll talk about solutions, later on. but first, how to give your small business "the edge." one

restaurant owner explains how that helped him get through the recession. that's next with bill moller.

i think the most common dream is to run your own business, and many times it's a restaurant, even though restaurants have the highest failure rate of all small businesses. but we're going to talk about a restaurant that is so fantastically successful, its customers stepped up to pull through and help the business get through the recession last year as it faced bankruptcy. now it's among the top 10 busiest independent pizza joints in the

country. nick sarillo is the founder of nick's pizza & pub. you were featured in inc magazine's cover story, the nbc nightly news, you have a mantle full of awards, the head of zappo's endorses your methods. but when we think of a pizza joint, this is not a little storefront place, these are big operations. > > yes they are. 350 seats. 9,000 square foot. we have 200 team members in our company. we have 40-something people working on a busy shift in one night. > > you think of the big companies - google and apple - that they have this culture of passion and drivenness, and yet, in small businesses, it's not typically talked about much. > > that's really interesting because we hear so much about those big sexy companies that have those big sexy cultures. and my point in my book, and actually what we have done in our company is to show that we can have a great culture in our everyday business. and that is what our country is mostly made of anyhow, small businesses that we are coming across everyday. > > a plumbing shop, a carpentry business. these too

can have passionate, driven employees that feel invested in the success of those businesses. > > simply by being explicit about the culture we want to have in our business, and then also doing the same thing with our values. that's really how we do what we do. > > it's interesting how the employees caused the customers, who you call guests, to really feel that this is a completely different customer experience. and they came through for you last year. > > yes they did in a humongous way. we've built so much trust in our team by doing this business model, and we also built so much trust in our community that when we went through a really tough time, unexpected, i never expected this in my whole life, i wrote a letter to our whole frequent diner database, 16,000 people, and the thing went viral. everybody showed up. it was like in that movie "it's a wonderful life." it was an incredible thing. > > well, a validation that your principles are great and no wonder that your business takes in about twice what the average independent pizza joint does.

and your turnover rate is phenomenally low. nick sarillo, from nick's pizza and pub and the book. thank you so much. thank you. > > thank you. coming up, we're going to tell you the story of a remarkable woman. what she does is help soldiers fight against debt. that's coming up.

w after years of watching

servicemen and -women being ripped off due to their lack of

knowledge about finances, one army wife decided to take matters into her own hands. amanda carter is on set with us this morning. she is the founder of debt and cash management. good to have you on our show today. > > thank you for having me. > > how severe of a problem is it for military people as far as their finances? > > on a level from 1 to 10, i would say about an 11. > > wow. just that bad? what did you see out there? > > i started off working at payday loan companies, and i worked for just about every payday loan company you could name, i've worked for. you would see soldiers, they go over to iraq and afghanistan and they serve, and they get a bonus when they come back. the first vultures that would hit would be a car-lot company, because they would be like, "oh, i know you have a bonus. come get this shiny new car and don't worry about the interest rate, just give us all your bonus money and go from there." so that would start the first stressor. so then now their in the reality that they're back in the states and they're not getting

paid as much as they were overseas, so then they're like, "ok, i need a payday loan," so they'd get three or four, and they were all on the same block. you would go to this payday loan place, and you would walk three feet to another payday loan place, and you would see soldiers looping in and out. > > just a vicious cycle. > > and they would just make the minimum payment just to keep it going. and you tell them, you know, after a few times, you're no longer getting the benefits of getting the payday loan. because, if you use it right, it is a benefit. but after so many payments over and over, you have paid them triple time over. > > so fast forward and now you started up your own company because you admire people such as suze orman, who helps people with their money. so what strategies do you give to people? > > well, i don't try to fit anybody into a box, but normally you fit into one of three, which is, you need to use the snowball method, which is pay your smallest debt to your biggest debt, or you need to use the interest rate method, which is pay your highest interest rate to your lowest interest rate, or you need to use the psychological method, which is the one that is bothering you the most, we start there, and

then we branch out, because you're not going to get anywhere, you're going to keep in the same circle, if we can't mentally change your habits. > > what's your best success story of helping somebody? > > i would say my best success story would be a guy that came from iraq, and he had $5,000 in payday loans, he had personal loans out between mom, dad, auntie, about $2,000. i would say overall, he was about $30,000 in debt, not including a car or a house. got him all set and fixed up in 36 months, and he just needed to change what he was doing, and i got him changing his habits. that's what really needs to happen. > > amanda, you're amazing. > > thank you. > > thank you for coming in today. > > thank you for having me once again. > > she's amanda carter, and she started her own company. it's called debt and cash management. best wishes to you. > > thank you very much. you have a great day. coming up, find out what stocks traders are harvesting this quarter. that's next.

time now for some chart talk, and larry shover of sfg alternatives joins us now. good morning to you larry. the charts have been very strong for a number of stocks, but as we get into fall and into that

fourth quarter, what are some stocks that are of great interest you? > > for me specifically, i really like anything to do with the home builders, because we are underestimating as a country, as a market, the tailwind our recovery in the housing markets can provide to these stocks, whether it be lowe's, home depot, caterpillar, even some of the mortgage providers. we've fallen down a five-year flight of steps in terms of housing prices, and it seems like the market is just starting to get better. it's going to be a long-term thing. i don't expect any one of these stocks to double overnight, but i think we're in for a long-term recovery, so i like anything to do with home- building, housing, or the mortgage market. > > are there stocks or sectors you would stay away from? > > you know, right now i would stay away from technicals, or technology, i should say, or i'd lighten my load a little bit, because i do think there are rotations in any sector, and technologies have carried the day for quite awhile. i don't think technologies are

absolutely terrible, i just think there's better value out there, especially when it comes to manufacturing, home building, mortgage providers, given how far down they've gone in the last three to five years. > > how much cash should somebody have in their portfolio in that third and fourth quarter? > > well, i think everybody should be well diversified amongst everything. i don't believe anybody should put all their eggs in one basket whatsoever. if you're a 60% stock person, i think 10% and slivers of different mortgage providers, home building, whatever happens to be. that's how i've been raised, that's how i've learned, and that's what seems to work over the long haul. > > everything in moderation. thank you for being on our show today. thank you larry shover of sfg alternatives. that's a wrap for today. we thank you for joining us and encourage you to write, call, or tweet us anytime with questions and comments. we love to hear from you. from all of us at first business, we hope you have a great day! [musi

. dozens of hotel guests are being evacuated following a hazmat situation. we will tell you what alerted police to search a man. and he got his job back last month but the new effort we are learning about to get sheriff ross mirkarimi out, it is all ahead on the ktvu channel 2 morning news.

this is ktvu channel 2 morning news. well, good morning, it is thursday, friday eve, i am brian flores. >> mark is in for steve this morning, when is the rain coming, that is the big question? >> well, we could be tracking a few showers. a couple of days ago we had record heat and a big reversal with our weather pattern. you can't see most of the action, to our north up along the northeast, it does include clouds increasing and we do have a chance of increasing showers and scattered showers this afternoon is a good bet. sal has an update on traffic, good morning sal. we have some road work around the bay area, let's take a look at what we have with highway 4 and it looks good coming to the willow